All aboard! A ship raising the car ramp.

So learning Japanese takes a lot of time, or money, or both.

では、クラスを始める前に調べなければいけません。

And it’s your time and money, so why not do some research first? If you don’t research, you just waste both of these precious resources.

This applies to all Japanese classes and teachers. Sometimes you can’t know until you take the course, unfortunately. I tried doing a traditional classroom-based course for three years and it was good for what it was. A solid explanation of Genki I and II, a grammar foundation, and a lot of vocabulary that you never got to use because conversation was saved for the higher levels.

(Just a personal gripe about Genki vocabulary, I really don’t care about how to say graduate student or economics professor in Japanese. There. I feel better now.)

So what about Kevin (Dogen)?

He had a goal of teaching pitch accent to Japanese learners. Let me tell you, in three years of studying Japanese in a classroom setting, not one word was ever said about pitch accent. So by bringing that to the forefront, he did a huge service to people who wanted the maximal fluency potential in their spoken Japanese.

But to really know about him, you can either read this Tofugu article or join his Patreon. I’ve done both. So let’s explore together, shall we?

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